1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a medical system architecture of the type having a modality for the acquisition of examination images, a device allocated to the modality for processing the examination images, a device for the transmission of data and the examination images and with a device for storing the data and examination images.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Medical system architectures, referred to as PACS (Picture Archival and Communication Systems), wherein image viewing and image processing stations, referred to as workstations, are connected to one another via an image communication network are known from the book, “Bildgebende Systeme fur die medizinische Diagnostik,” edited by H. Morneburg, 3rd Edition, 1995, pages 684 ff.
The client software of a radiology information system (RIS) is the operating interface for medical-technical radiology assistants (MTRA) or X-ray technicians and physicians in radiology in order, for example, to admit patients, plan and terminate the examinations, administer the findings and initiate billing. Dependent on the embedding in the higher-ranking hospital information system (HIS), some of these procedures can have already ensued in the HIS, for instance the patient admission, performance request and billing, whereby the RIS merely accepts the data coupled to these procedures via a network interface.
In addition to these “administrative activities”, the RIS also often functions as workflow driver in radiology in order, for example, to send request data in the form of a DICOM work list entry to a modality such as a CT, MR or X-ray apparatus at which the examination is to occur. Given today's systems, the examination data, for example number of images, series and radiation protection data such as tube voltage (kV), mAs product (mAs), time (s), energy dose (Gy), etc., must be manually read by a worker and transmitted into the RIS for the required transfer of that examination data from the modality into the RIS for documentation and billing, considerable outlay and additional sources of error results therefrom.
When a PACS solution is additionally utilized, then the RIS offers further workflow driver functions, for example in order to automatically load earlier images and findings of a patient from the archive onto a diagnostics workstation, referred to as pre-fetching, or to automatically return images and findings selected according to auto-routing to the requesting clinical departments.
The operation of the RIS ensues via specific client terminals—simple ASCII terminals earlier, currently usually commercially obtainable PCs. This particularly means that an extra personal computer (PC) with its own keyboard is usually located as RIS client next to every console computer of a modality and next to every PACS diagnostics workstation. The operator, for example MTRA or physician, must thereby permanently switch back and forth between the various computers and keyboards. Often, the operator must even undertake double entries of the same data, namely at the console computers of the modality as well as at the terminals of the RIS client. This is especially true of all data that cannot be exchanged standardized via the DICOM work list, for example item counts of consumables or specific work steps that are relevant later in the billing.
Heretofore, the radiological performance could in fact be produced by a number of distributed computers, for example the console computers of the modality and PCs with the RIS client placed next to them, but the operation exhibited only slight user-friendliness for MTRAs and physicians in view of the possibilities of controlling and optimizing the department resources (utilization management) and in view of the possible degree of automation of the information flows.
German OS 196 25 835 discloses a medical system architecture of the type initially described wherein a WWW expansion type (MIME) for images, videos or a viewer of objects of the industrial standard in the WWW browser is allocated to a method for data exchange between various application programs. Further, the scope of the MIME expansion is defined as DICOM images, videos and objects. The basis is thereby formed by an exchange of messages with DICOM via the network interface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,654,555 is directed to a system for the transmission of X-ray images via a network to a locationally remote device with physical network connections as well as transport protocols and medical protocols, whereby patient examination data can be interrogated from an RIS.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,011,552 discloses a displaceable menu icon for access to an application in a graphic user interface (UI), whereby windows and icons can be arranged in a surveyable manner above one another or next to one another on the picture screen, specifically when one of the windows offers access to a video conferencing session.